STEM Resources

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Showing 51 - 100 of 110 resources

Mah Support Finder BETA

A tool from Benetech that aims to help users find accessible tools for reading math.
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Making Chemistry Accessible to the Blind One Atom at a Time

During the 2012 National Convention, Henry Wedler shared his inspiring story of how he came to be a Ph.D. candidate in computational organic chemistry, the founder of a chemistry camp for blind students, and a chemistry instructor. He describes his high expectations for himself; the importance of seeing blind professionals who are scientists, mathematicians, and engineers; and the pivotal role of a college professor who encouraged him to pursue his dream of a profession in chemistry.
Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: STEM stories

Math and Science Braille

Information from the Braille Authority of North America about transcribing math and science using the Nemeth code.
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Math Courses

The Hadley Institute for the Blind and Visually Impaired is the largest provider of online distance education programs for the blind and visually impaired around the world and offers a wide variety of courses free of charge to its blind and visually impaired students and their families, and affordable tuition to blindness professionals. Its math course offerings include Abacus, pre-algebra, algebra 1 and 2, practical math, the Essentials of the Nemeth Code, and Basic Nemeth Code.
Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: Accessible STEM tools

Math Drill Cards

Math Drill Cards are available for sale at www.aph.org and are math skill reinforcing cards for five to ten-year-olds that come in five separate sets using the Nemeth Braille Code for Mathematics.
Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: Accessible STEM tools

Math Flash

This website offers for sale Math Flash, a math training software program that helps elementary school students sharpen their math skills with talking electronic flash cards. Students select a Math Mentor character that communicates instructions, drills, and games to make learning basic math skills enjoyable.
Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: Accessible STEM tools

Math products from APH

A listing of all math products offered by APH. Note: these products can be purchased by a student's school district using "quota funds". Families should not have to purchase these out of pocket.
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MathPlayer

This website offers for sale MathPlayer, a math reader that works with a NonVisual Desktop Access screen reader to speak and Braille math content in Microsoft Word and Powerpoint, Internet Explorer, and Firefox.
Grade level: Middle/high school; STEM discipline: ; Other details: Accessible STEM tools

MathTalk/Scientific Notebook

Math Talk/Scientific Notebook is a mathematics dictating program that allows the users to “voice” mathematical symbols and equations for pre-algebra, algebra, calculus, trigonometry, calculus, and statistics, including at the graduate and Ph.D. levels. MathTalk provides the voice input for Scientific Notebook, a powerful mathematical word processing system.
Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: Accessible STEM tools

MoneyTalks

Money Talks: Bank Account Management Software is an accessible bank account management software package developed by APH that can be used with a screen reader or with its own self-voicing feature. The software allows the user to import and use electronic banking information to reconcile accounts, emboss or print the check register in a variety of formats, and print many types of bank checks.
Grade level: College and Career; STEM discipline: ; Other details: Accessible STEM tools

Multiplication and Division Table

This website offers for sale Multiplication and Division Table, a large print/Braille kit to help math students with multiplication and division problems. Included are ten printed/embossed grids, a print guidebook, and a free-of-charge Braille guidebook that can be downloaded in the .brf file format.
Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: Accessible STEM tools

My Experiences as a Blind Chemistry Student

This article provides advice, and describes effective techniques, for blind people to study and master chemistry.
Grade level: Middle/high school; STEM discipline: Chemistry; Other details: Accessible STEM tools, STEM stories

National Federation of the Blind

Nemeth Code Reference Sheet for Basic Math

A list of common symbols from the Nemeth Braille Code for Mathematics. This is a useful reference tool.
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NFB Technology Resource List

This webpage on the National Federation of the Blind website provides a comprehensive list of technology resources for the blind and visually impaired, identifying and explaining the technology, and describing in detail the many available products, their features, and their cost. Examples are Braille note takers, refreshable Braille displays, Braille translation software, tactile graphics, and print reading hardware and software.
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NFB Youth Slam: What I Wish I Had Learned As A Teen (2009)

This article provides a detailed taste of the 2009 Youth Slam week, including the eleven different STEM tracks and nearly thirty short sessions attended by the students. It also describes the can-do philosophy that permeates this program, which leaves students with a greater sense of pride and belief in themselves and their potential.
Grade level: Middle/high school; STEM discipline: ; Other details: STEM programs

Of Stars and Sharks: The Circle of Life

This article discusses two NFB programs designed in partnership with NASA to teach students about how they can learn about and participate in science as a blind person: Circle of Life for middle schoolers, and Rocket On! for high school students. The goal is not only to instill a love of science and encourage blind students to pursue science careers, but to develop and disseminate nonvisual techniques for learning science.
Grade level: Middle/high school; STEM discipline: ; Other details: STEM programs

On LEGO, the Pattern of Experience, and Building A Generation of Blind Scientists and Engineers

In this article, Mark Riccobono discusses the importance of building new and more effective patterns of high expectations and experience; the article describes the tool of LEGOs as one way to create opportunities for blind children to engage in hands-on exploration, understand and express building concepts, explore and create patterns, create mental maps, and develop literacy and listening skills by building based on instructions.
Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: STEM stories

Periodic Table of the Elements

This website, provided by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, provides an online periodic table, instructions how to use the table, a description of each element, chemical properties, and an elements list, as well as an ability to download the periodic table.
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Perkins Accessible Science

A website offering resources pertaining to making science accessible to blind and low vision students.
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Preparation in and Use of the Nemeth Braille Code for Mathematics by Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments

This article describes a study involving the preparation and use of the Nemeth Code for Braille Mathematics and Science Notation by 135 teachers to instruct students with visual impairments. The authors of the study describe various concerns supported by the data they collected, including a need for more instruction in the Nemeth code at the preservice level so that future teachers of the blind have the skills and resources needed to prepare materials in and teach students the Nemeth code.
Grade level: College and Career; STEM discipline: ; Other details: Accessible STEM tools

Preparing for an Inquiry-Based Summer Camp Experience for Students with Visual Impairments: What Do the Campers Think?

This article, which records the results of surveys completed by visually impaired students who participated in a weeklong science, technology, engineering, and mathematics camp, reports: (1) a high level of satisfaction by students who self- selected a STEM area to investigate and developed their own research questions and methodologies, and (2) benefits to older students with visual impairments who mentored younger students with visual impairments.
Grade level: Middle/high school; STEM discipline: ; Other details: STEM programs

Quest Challenges

This NASA website provides interactive web-based activities for students from kindergarten through high school to introduce them to science and engineering processes. The website also provides online tools and resources such as lesson plans, teacher guides, and workbooks.
Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: Accessible STEM tools

Raised Relief Maps

Raised Relief Maps is a website that offers for sale raised relief maps of individual states, the United States, the world, national parks, and the Appalachian Trail.
Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: Accessible STEM tools

Reaching Out for New Opportunities: The 2004 NFB Summer Science Experience

This article addresses one of the first initiatives of the NFB Research and Training Institute, the development of two weeklong science camps for blind children through a partnership with NASA and the Maryland Science Center of Baltimore. The goals of these camps are to inspire blind youth to pursue careers in science and to build confidence through opportunities to perform challenging science activities.
Grade level: Middle/high school; STEM discipline: ; Other details: STEM programs

Representation of Simple Graphs in Virtual Tactile Space  

This article describes the development and preliminary evaluation by the authors of a two-dimensional, low-cost, dynamic tactile display for use with computers that could complement static tactile displays of graphical material.
Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: Accessible STEM tools

Resource List for Accessing Math and Science

A list of resources for math and science access curated by Infty Reader.
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Rocket On!: Excitement, Challenge, and Growth

This article addresses the reasons why the 2005 Rocket On! Science Academy camp was successful. Participants not only learned a lot about science, but grew in self-confidence, self-awareness, travel skills, teamwork, attitudes about blindness, and established meaningful relationships.
Grade level: Middle/high school; STEM discipline: Engineering, General/basic science, Physics, Space science; Other details: STEM programs, STEM stories

Science Courses

The Hadley Institute for the Blind and Visually Impaired is the largest provider of online distance education programs for the blind and visually impaired around the world and offers a wide variety of courses free of charge to its blind and visually impaired students and their families, and affordable tuition to blindness professionals. Its science course offerings include Physical Science, Life Science, Earth and Space Science, and Health.
Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: STEM programs

Science Inquiry for Students With Visual Impairments

A webinar about inquiry-based techniques for teaching science to blind and low vision students. A good resource for teachers.
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Science products from APH

A listing of all science products offered by APH. Note: these products can be purchased by a student's school district using "quota funds". Families should not have to purchase these out of pocket.
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Science, Blindness, and Evolution: The Common Theme Is Opportunity

This re-publication of an article by Geerat Vermeij, a renowned blind marine biologist, addresses the importance of opportunity in teaching the blind about science. Opportunity means hands-on experience, a curiosity to take in the world through our senses, a can-do attitude, and the flexibility to look for alternative methods when standard procedures and protocols don't work.
Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: STEM stories

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math to the Extreme

This article describes the experience of forty-five blind high school students and their mentors during a five-day summer program at Towson University in Baltimore called NFB STEM-X. The students chose one of five focus disciplines (aerospace engineering, chemistry, civil engineering, computer science, and robotics) and collaborated and problem-solved to develop and implement innovative solutions to a hypothetical potentially devastating natural disaster–a comet on a collision course with Earth.
Grade level: Middle/high school; STEM discipline: ; Other details:

Scientific Notebook

This website sponsored by MacKichan Software offers for sale, and provides information concerning, Scientific Notebook Version 6, a powerful mathematical word processor and computational system for teaching and learning mathematics that can create documents containing text, mathematics, and graphics.
Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: Accessible STEM tools

Sense of Science: Animals

Sense of Science: Animals is the second module in a tactile/visual hands-on science kit series that includes a set of colorful, raised-line overlays of animals such as ants, birds, and fish that are designed to be used with a light box, or as stand-alone items. The kit includes a guide book that is available in Braille.
Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: Accessible STEM tools

Sense of Science: Plants

Sense of Science: Plants is the first module in a tactile/visual hands-on science kit that employs a multi-sensory approach to teach visually impaired students in grades K-3 basic plant concepts. The kit
includes a guide book available in Braille and colorful raised line overlays designed to be used with a light box, or as stand- alone items.


Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: Accessible STEM tools

Space Exploration Experience (SEE) Project for the Blind and Visually Impaired

The Space Exploration Experience Project for the Blind and Visually Impaired is a website that provides hands-on science activities and programs in Braille and print that actively engage blind and visually impaired students in exploring and learning about space.
Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: STEM programs

Spacesounds

Space Sounds is 80 minute-long compact disc of sounds and music featuring earth, air, fire, and water, as well as recordings of NASA ground and spacecraft communications from the historic Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Shuttle missions.
Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: Accessible STEM tools

StackUps: Spatial Reasoning Using Cubes and Isometric Drawings

This website offers for sale StackUps Kit: Spacial Reasoning Cubes and Isometric Drawings, a set of materials designed to assist students with visual impairments and blindness in the interpretation of raised-line graphics depicting 3-dimensional figures, specifically stacked cube arrangements. With this kit, students practice tasks such as building 3-D models, interpreting front-right-top views, and determining volume and surface area.
Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: Accessible STEM tools

Tactile Treasures: Math and Language Concepts for Young Children with Visual Impairments

An informal assessment and teaching tool for use with children with visual impairments from preschool through elementary grades that helps develop an early understanding of basic concepts and vocabulary that are prerequisites for reading and math. It includes 79 thermoformed sheets with pictures made from real objects to illustrate concepts related to shape, size, amount, comparison of two or more objects, position, prereading, and page orientation.
Grade level: Elementary school; STEM discipline: Math; Other details: Accessible STEM tools

Talking Business Calculator

This website offers for sale the TBC-1, a professional Canon CP1213D business calculator specially modified to talk for people with low or no vision. It announces the name of the keys when pressed, numeric results are “talked out” one digit at a time, and the contents of the display at any given time can be re-announced by the press of a button
Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: Accessible STEM tools

Talking Labquest

Sci-Voice Talking Lab Quest is an accessible, talking, real-time data collection device with file menu navigation and a full periodic table for use in field and lab experiments. The hand-sized device, which is compatible with over 60 sensors to support multi-variable experiments and data-logging activities, announces the collected data and records it in data tables on the device, among other functions
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Talking Scientific Calculator

The Orion TI-30XS MultiView Talking Scientific Calculator is a convenient and accessible calculator that provides full speech access to all menus, mathematical expressions, text, and symbols displayed on the screen.
Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: Accessible STEM tools

Talking Thermometers

This website offers for sale a variety of talking thermometers: English, Spanish, or multi-language clinical thermometers for use orally, under the arm, behind the ear, or on the forehead; talking indoor and outdoor thermometers; and talking meat thermometers.
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Text directions for LEGO sets

Text instructions of the diagrams included in LEGO sets are available for download here.
Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: Accessible STEM tools

The 2004 NFB Science Academy: Turning Dreams into Reality

This article summarizes the results of an assessment of the NFB’s newly established 2004 Science Academy and its first summer science camps: the Circle of Life Camp and the Rocket On! Camp. An experienced program evaluator, Dr. C. Edwin Vaughan, examines the key ingredients that made these summer science camps such a success.
Grade level: ; STEM discipline: ; Other details: STEM programs

The Blind in Science and Beyond

Cary Supalo is a research scientist and chemistry professor at Purdue and founder of Independence Science, a business that promotes the development of access technologies to provide hands-on learning science experiences for blind students. In this article, he shares his path to a STEM career, emphasizing the importance of setting a goal and persisting, overcoming the fear of not having all the answers, and using problem-solving skills to meet challenges.
Grade level: College and Career; STEM discipline: ; Other details: STEM stories

The Blind in Science: From Spectators to Innovators

This short article summarizes the summer 2013 STEM-X Program at Towson University in Baltimore, in which fifty high school students from around the country worked with blind and sighted STEM professionals in a hands-on, collaborative manner to problem-solve challenges in a chosen focus discipline: chemistry, computer science, engineering, robotics, and space science.
Grade level: Middle/high school; STEM discipline: ; Other details:

The Inside Scoop on the NFB Youth Slam (2007)

This article reflects on the memories of the 2007 NFB Youth Slam from the perspective of those working at the NFB Jernigan Institute. It provides an overview of the innovative educational curriculum and learning of the week, and captures the spirit, energy, and positive impact of the experience.
Grade level: Middle/high school; STEM discipline: ; Other details:

This IS Rocket Science 

This article, written by a facilitator at the NFB’s Rocket On! 2004 NFB summer science camp, describes the experience of the first ever blind students to build and launch a sounding rocket. With mentoring provided primarily by blind instructors and NASA scientists, blind high school students had an opportunity not only to learn about rocket science, but to discover a belief in themselves and their ability to overcome obstacles.
Grade level: Middle/high school; STEM discipline: ; Other details:

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